Master this

I have... vague thoughts about masters degrees... not so much ambitions because I do not feel I wholly understand them.  But before I ask someone about them I should probably do a bit of my own research.

I suppose the main question is HOW BENEFICIAL IS THIS?

I mean it can't not be beneficial to spend another year or so revelling in your own artistic processes but HOW beneficial is that. I gather it is maybe necessary to have such a qualification for certain jobs (teaching at degree level? which I am... certainly interested in) but how much joy / vital knowledge can it bring to someone that, although great is not necessary for progression of career and is very expensive to undertake...

On a narrow look of courses they all seem nice but seem pretty similar to what I'm already experiencing at LCA.

Could I have this same amount of time to spend thinking hard but potentially without the fee as say, an artist in residence somewhere? How does THAT work?

portfolio

I am yet to find a portfolio website maker that is not fuelled by some amount of sin. I crawled back to Format. For example, I want a very very simple website. This is very close to the kind of thing I like but the side bar is driving me mad. Regardless if I set all of the elements up on here first I can mess with it more and maybe I will learn to love it.

This is how the website looks so far

Splash page: could do with some contextual info!

Gallery listings of projects

How the project pages look (they also all have small descriptions)

I think the main point to this / any portfolio is that I'm not happy with the work that's on there. However! It is good to have the bare bones ready so I can easily add as I go along.

Melek Zertal for the New York Times

AT THE BEACH IN MY BURKINI

Like Dadu Shin's work for NYT this also caught my eye for its sensitivity. Although I mentioned before how I enjoy works of editorial that are actually quite literal this piece is surreal but subtly so- again not so much relying on (tired) visual symbols and metaphors but just being thoughtful and atmospheric.

Seeing all this great work gives me interest in having the New York Times as an aspiration of a client. I also spotted JooHee Yoon's work on there too.

briefs!

LIVE BRIEFS I AM INTERESTED IN:

• Folio Society
• I enjoyed doing this competition last year 
• The Macmillan Prize
• A way to continue my interest in children's publishing whilst also entering it as part of a live brief 
• Penguin Design Award
• I ended up forfeiting my time entering this in 2016 for another live brief but do regret not taking it on. I could do all three books to make it a more hefty brief.

These are all publishing based which shows my interests (more than I realised) but also makes them all quite similar. It is also hard to anticipate what live briefs will show up in the coming future, but these are three competitions that tend to run consistently year to year that hold my interest.

SELF INITIATED BRIEF IDEAS:

• editorial a week 
• could be current events and less time based stories
• book covers 
• should I do this as well as the Penguin Design Award? good for portfolio though
• children's book?
• seems a little pointless do one separately to Pan Macmillan
• self-published zine/ publication
•  working with sequential narrative (?)
• non-fiction / educational piece
• for children?
• a series of prints
• I would not wish to print these in a traditional method, and I also do not think that is necessary. Like the self published zine it could explore parts of my practice that are less commercially done and more self initiated.
• packaging / product
• children's toy designs?
• enamel pins (are they surviving?) / designed merch

QUESTION: Can I get a print or a painting into a gallery? Is that what I want?

EDIT: Marianna Madriz and Wai Wai Pang very kindly offered me a spot on their Thoughtbubble table to place a zine/ publication if I so wish! (I sold Newt Musical Express there too last year). They are also sharing the table with Jonny Clapham and possibly Disa Wallander and some of Jazz Dad Publications... the pressure is on to make something good ! All under the umbrella of GRID KIDS 

Dadu Shin + editorial

I haven't so up to speed on what's happening in the world of editorial illustration, but I saw this series that Dadu Shin is working on for the New York Times on disability and it kicked me. I prefer the more literal/ less metaphorical (?) images in the series (maybe editorial in general too), that rely on emotion and atmosphere rather than unnatural visual symbols. It's more subtle and I think it's more powerful as a result.

I read this story this morning : ‘When you find my body’: The last days of Gerry Largay'. It was a powerful, touching, and immediately I was inspired to make illustrations. I am keen that any image made in response to this, or any story, should be sensitively handled. I am also keen to make images in response to sensitive subjects as well as fun and as bland ones. I'm trying to find where my tone fits and I think I could do a job of this. If I was to make something in response to this, as it would be 'unsolicited', I would be careful about how I publish it online / in my portfolio.

tumblr

I changed my tumblr theme, as well as getting rid of all text posts. It's just a little neater. The theme might look a little wacky on screenshot but runs much smoother as an actual website and allows viewing of multiple pieces at a time in a clear way.

 I have no intention of this being an official portfolio and like to post finished pieces as well as lighter things- personal paintings and drawings done on a whim, straight up terrible doodles... Altogether I want it to be an archive of how I work that is presented in a pleasing way. Something that wouldn't turn off a client and maybe something they'd be interested to look at- even if it's not just the fully fledged stuff.

I opened up my Format account and had to pay to look at it again before realising that (for me) it was quite awful. I'm considering SquareSpace, and will start to build the website as a base ready for work that will be made. It won't be finished but portfolios always change...

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poster jobs summer 16

Since the summer started I've done a few poster commissions. Most of them have been a continuation of my work for Fuzzy, like stated before I'm really trying to push myself to make things I genuinely like, would suit my portfolio, are out of my comfort zones though of course, above all, please the client.

Some I'm happier with than others, but I do really think I'm getting into the swing of knowing what I like AND how I can handle that in a poster/ digital format.

I also got a job making a poster for the Flamenco Sketches comedy night in London. This was a connection made through social media and handled... informally. Everything about it was professional but sometimes it's also ok to send (and receive) fun gifs of LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy.

Conor Jatter, who handled the commission and is also a designer, talked to me about my work after seeing it on tumblr- which goes to show that it's an OK pseudo-portfolio. I took it as a chance to try a painted commission (as that's where I have most fun) and it felt like a more successful attempt than what I made for CSN. 

££££££

Since the end of the last academic year I have been asking for more money and what I think is a reasonable rate not only for clients but, honestly more importantly, for myself. I've had the odd job inquiry (mutual friend's band t-shirts, flyer work proposed from a tumblr user etc) that has (sometimes mysteriously) gone silent when I've asked them for the sum. I'm ok with that and I am no longer prepared to work for lower sums (what I charge now I would consider on the cheaper side) unless it truly truly truly was something spectacular/ close to my heart. There's little point when I could be using that time to sell prints, or engage in my practice in a personal way - I'm lucky to be in a position where I'm not clamouring for any scraps of money for a lot of work.

I have had some troubles though. I've been working with Fuzzy for three years now and would consider it to be a good and trustworthy relationship. There's been issues with the payments not coming through, which has happened before and been corrected but this time it is taking much longer.  The guys have been really apologetic and good about it and have been chasing up who is in charge of payments. However, I do wonder if it is worth holding off further jobs from them until I see some money. Regardless, I will be away for a week soon so unable to work. 

Notes from The Hepworth

Hepworth + Moore + friends:

• I didn't spend a lot of time thinking too critically about these pieces, but there's no doubt they're beautiful to look at. Like I was thinking about Hockney before, it's really nice / interesting to see artists engaging with the environment around them, particularly when it's local.
• It's also a weird feeling to see artists grouped together frequently whether it's because their work/ location is similar or if they really were friends / colleagues. Art seems like such a selfish pursuit that I forget that it's not a vacuum. Same goes for design, though I find myself picking out peoples' influences much clearer there- a question of my own knowledge but how it is also an Industry.
• Naive / folk / tribal art was very lightly touched on in Hepworth/ Moore exhibits but not gone into depth so much, as far as I'm aware. It seems a shame to not talk about these influences so much.

Stanley Spencer

• My critical and formal opinion of this exhibition is that it is WILD
• It's hard to describe how I feel looking at these paintings, particularly in regards to the religious paintings which are what I remember and focus on mostly when I think of him. It is hard to imagine them in a context where they are taken seriously- stylistically they are bizarre, iconically and what is going on in the paintings is often even stranger. It is quite amazing to look at the big shipyard paintings that he was commissioned to make by somebody else when you also look at his other paintings.
• So from that : I imagined Spencer's painting work to be insular and isolated but in some way he established himself as a successful and sometimes commercial painter, I want to find out how painters work- maybe not so much for my own career but just out of interest.
• In all honesty my gut instinct is often to laugh at these paintings, but they are also incredibly dark and full of upset. Even after reading the painting descriptions I found it a little hard to understand where he was coming from but that's ok, once it's in the gallery it is the viewer's to think about.
• The compositions themselves were also jarring, often they looked to be in grids but not quite - the perspectives would be off - sometimes the pieces felt unbalanced... but that all largely fed into the strange feelings of the work.

• The exhibition manager (?) is a friend of the friend I visited the exhibition with and we coincidentally saw him briefly in Leeds afterwards. Where we were was too loud for me to actually hear him (I'm sure he had plenty of great things to say) but I was glad to hear that the exhibition was getting a good reception from Stanley Spencer fans. We also mentioned the young kids doing some kind of theatre outside on the grounds and he mentioned how they provide space to them as one of the few spaces in Wakefield. Art education is important and I forget that because my own making as a teenager was so insular (that isn't good).